In honor of World Diabetes Day (November 14).

The mere idea that it’s possible to reverse diabetes at all, let alone in days, may seem preposterous to some. But that’s what Mike Adams claims in a breathtaking, important, short video which can be found here, along with 3 other short videos that are also important:

SIMPLY RAW

Personally, I have no doubt as to the validity of this claim at all.

Why? Because I know, as these guys know, what causes Type 2 Diabetes, and it’s not just your genes. Nor is it something that just goes with aging or whatever. Nor is it incurable.

Diabetes is caused, in brief, by S.A.D. — the Standard American Diet. Period.  Mike Adams says in the video that Diabetes is caused by a sedentary lifestyle and too much sugar consumption — which to me is another way of describing S.A.D., since white flour and other utterly denatured grains and cereals turn very quickly to sugars in the body once consumed.

Our current national epidemic of diabetes tracks directly with the growth in sugar consumption in the United States, including HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup).

So what these 4 men are promoting is a diet high in Living Foods, another name for raw foods.

Now, before you go running and screaming from the image of raw carrot and celery sticks, stop. Relax. That’s not what they’re talking about at all.

Oh, those are raw all right, and certainly allowed or encouraged on a totally raw or the slightly less intense “high raw” version diet, but there’s so much more to it than that. In fact, I think raw foodists are some of the most creative cooks and chefs I can imagine.

Yes, I’ve been flirting with a high raw diet (again), and frankly I love it. I love the food (not all of it, but enough), and I love the idea, and I love how it makes me feel — cleaner, clearer, lighter.

I tried a 100% raw diet last year about this time but couldn’t quite get there, and still can’t. I lasted for a month, which is pretty good. I am borderline diabetic, and seem to be one of those people who still need some animal protein in their diets. So, I try for 2 meals a day raw, and then a relatively healthy non-S.A.D. dinner. (That would usually be meat, 2 vegetables plus salad, and possibly some brown rice or a bit of potato.)

Raw food is definitely worth checking out, if you’re interested in improving your health. You’ll find an abundance of fabulous resources on the internet, and Amazon  has scads of raw food cookbooks. I’ll add a Resource Page for raw food shortly.

Here’s one of my very favorite raw food recipes, one I keep on hand most of the time (it freezes well too):

RAW CARROT “CAKE”

2-1/2 C ground carrots*
1 C walnuts*
1/2 C soaked dates
1 C soaked raisins
1 tsp freshly diced ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp nutmeg

* I have a small, puny food processor, so I grate my carrots first before trying to process them into a paste. It’s also not very good with making flour out of nuts, so I have a small coffee mill dedicated to that task.

Grind carrots, place in mixing bowl. Grind walnuts to a fine powder and add to mixing bowl. Blend or process the soaked dates and 1/2 the raisins and add to the mixing bowl along with the spices and remaining soaked whole raisins. Mix thoroughly by hand and form into a cake shape if you want, or spread in an 8×8 glass baking dish.  Frost (see recipe below). Keep refrigerated.

ICING
1 C soaked raw cashews
juice of 1/2 lemon
raw honey or stevia or agave syrup to desired sweetness (go light to start, you don’t need all that much)
nut milk to help blend (almond milk, for example, or a bit of raisin/date soak water)

Blend until smooth, then frost the cake.

Source:  Nathalie Lussier’s “28 Desserts You Can Eat Every Day” from CureCravingsForever.com

One of the most insidious and damaging  ingredients in contemporary processed food is HFCS – High Fructose Corn Syrup.

It’s in everything (read your labels!), at least in part because it’s so cheap:

HFCS was invented in the 1970s when scientists discovered a way to convert corn glucose into fructose, causing it to be substantially sweeter. Interestingly around the same time, the U.S. government began imposing tariffs on imported sugar and implementing sugar quotas on the amount of domestic sugar that could be grown. As a result, producers were able to obtain this new corn sweetener much more cheaply than they could sugar and they began to use it to sweeten their products.

Because it’s not a naturally occurring sweetener, but a manufactured (artificial) one, the body doesn’t know what to do with it — and that may be part of why its dramatically increased use since 1970 has tracked so precisely with the dramatic increase in obesity in the U.S.:

Mounting evidence suggests that the replacement of sugar by HFCS in the American diet is one reason why obesity is such a problem today. Intake of HFCS has increased from .6 pounds per person per year in the 1970s to 73.5 pounds per person in 2007. This represents an alarming 12,250% increase in consumption over just a few decades.

But obesity isn’t the only danger.  It also contains mercury, poisoning over 30% of the products it’s in, which the FDA has known about since 2005.

Other research has shown that HFCS:

• increases your ability to make fat (who needs that?), and increases your triglycerides (a blood fat that increases risk of heart disease) too
• increases risk of deveoping Type 2 diabetes
• may alter appetite and suppress leptin, increasing hunger and cravings for sweets
• may be especially dangerous for children, causing them to overconsume sweets throughout their lives and leading to childhood obesity

HFCS also  increases the risk of hypertension:  “people who ate or drank more than 74 grams per day of fructose (2.5 sugary soft drinks per day) increased their risk of developing hypertension. Specifically, a diet of more than 74 grams per day of fructose led to a 28%, 36%, and 87% higher risk for blood pressure levels of 135/85, 140/90, and 160/100 mmHg, respectively.”

If you’re not yet convinced that HFCS is really a biological poison, you proably will be by the time you read these warnings from experts — obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, even cancer.

More resources on HFCS at the HFCS Page.